Friday, July 30, 2010

Though today is another day without news, it is a day without a noose, and that must be good news, for a day without a noose, without its loops burning a groove into my palm, without wondering where best to knot that boa constrictor’s uncoiled end, without figuring if said place could bear the heft, bear the kicking, the crazed tick tock, a day without worrying about a bungled attempt, about every consequent day being a brain dead day, is a day with no news about a noose, and a day with no news about a noose is good news since no noose is good noose.

John Madera’s work is forthcoming in Conjunctions, The Believer, Rain Taxi: Review of Books, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, and CorduroyMountain. And he edits Big Other among other things.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

I have always enjoyed the ambiguity of the phrase "no news is good news." Do this mean that if there's no news, you should chill out because everything's fine? Or is it darker, as in: There is no news that could ever possibly be good?

Dawn Raffel's most recent book is Further Adventures in the Restless Universe.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Someone solved a crossword puzzle in two minutes flat today. Granted, it’s Monday, which makes the daily crossword easier. One is forced to wonder if this person could finish a Thursday or Friday crossword with such efficiency.

A careful inspection of the completed puzzle, however, revealed most of the words were incorrect. Although the letters reclined into the open white squares with graciousness and the words these letters juxtaposed to create were indeed real words that fit within the parameters of the clues, they were not the puzzle-maker’s intended words. As such, this person who solved this crossword puzzle in two minutes flat elided even the puzzle-maker.

Lily Hoang is the author of the novels, THE EVOLUTIONARY REVOLUTION, CHANGING (recipient of a 2009 PEN/Beyond Margins Award), and PARABOLA, (winner of the 2006 ChiasmusPress Un-Doing the Novel Contest).

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

No news today, certainly not when I’ve wasted its entire evening in one of the many, many manifestations of that early-21st-Century American phenomenon, the wine bar. Rarely has killing time been so elegantly disguised. I doubt the wits of the Algonquin Round Table, whiling away the hours over gin and blather, kidded themselves that they were somehow gaining in refinement as they grew more swozzled. I doubt Dorothy Parker would treat the word “terroir” with any more respect than she accorded the others she so brilliantly spun into pun. Today’s bar happens to be in the Algonquin’s Manhattan, but it could be in any of the instant-yuppie pockets one tumbles into across the country: off State St. in Madison, WI, along the Alberta corridor of Portland, OR, on the square in Oxford, MS.... Then there are the sort-of-small plates, eats that extend the delusion, allowing an idler to believe he’s not shoveling on the calories. Yes, these grilled dates, stuffed with ricotta and wrapped in thick local bacon — a better match for the Aglianico, wouldn’t you say? I’m developing such sophistication just sitting here, I can taste how this bacon was free-range; I know it attended the college of its choice. Yet neither the drinks nor the food’s the defining anomaly of such places (anomaly, or travesty, or what the fuck). Their earmark is an earworm, an unrelenting soundtrack of bebop jazz. Monk and Miles and Mingus, that M-erald forest with roots and branches that extend everywhere from this same small island’s E. 52nd St.: it’s their vibrant and exploratory riffs and slurs and roundings that float down, unendingly, from the speakers in such places. It’s the same attack on straightforward melody and rhythm that half a century or so ago challenged a clubgoer, asking him to experience melody and changes in new ways, to reinvent musical satisfaction. To call such an artist “easy listening,” whew, that would've invited gunplay. But that’s just what Monk’s “’Round Midnight” or Miles’ “So What” has become, these days, down in your thronging local wine bar. History has sprung a hellacious surprise, on these crazy cats; it’s turned them to fat and lazy tabbies.

But then again, who am I to play the Old Curmudgeon? To sit and cry crocodile tears for a former cutting edge turned to taffy? Who’s more willing than I to kill first Happy Hour and then dinner and then as long as it takes in a well-stocked wine bar, gabbing across a scrumptious sampler plate while Dexter Gordon’s Ballads cycle through on shuffle? Yes, the pesto bruschetta, please, with parmesan. And now seems a good time for that Falanghina, yes. And — indulge me here, oh, indulge me — do you have Miles and Cannonball doing “Autumn Leaves?”

The Emerging Writers Network called John Domini's novels from '07 and '08, Earthquake I.D. and A Tomb on the Periphery, "back-to-back stunners." Tomb on the Periphery also made the '09 short list at the London Book Festival for "the best of international publishing," and Earthquake I.D., in Italian translation, was runner-up for the Domenico Rea prize. He extends a warm and wine-rich welcome to anyone stopping by Des Moines.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

1. What we have here is more of the same: more floors and ceilings, more lines out the door and more press releases that let us know that more of the same is on the way. 2. Then the news will come that there is no news and we'll pocket it and wait. 3,4,5 & 6. And I'll have the thicker skin on the soles of my feet, and she'll have the same patch of grass in the same park except now the grass is thinning out, in the same way it always does. 7a. And we will all have it 7b. and have had it 7c. and then have it again.

Catherine Lacey is opening a Bed and Breakfast in Brooklyn this summer and yes, your folks should stay here when they come visit in the fall. Also she writes for a variety of outlets and is trying to sell a book. www.catherinelacey.com

Monday, July 19, 2010

The no news is: Revisionist historians are flooding the media with stories about how kind and "colorful" he was. And "determined," of course.

The facts are: Steinbrenner was a convicted felon.

The facts are: He was convicted of trying to illegally sway a federal election of the United States by making illegal campaign contributions to a U.S. president's re-election campaign and for obstructing justice.

The facts are: The president was Republican Richard Nixon.

The facts are: Steinbrenner was pardoned by another Republican president, Ronald Reagan, 15 years after his conviction.

The facts are: Steinbrenner never spent one minute in jail and never served parole.

The question is: How does a convicted felon stay out of jail for 15 years until he is pardoned and never even serve parole?

The answer is: Obvious.

The bullshit is: Steinbrenner was some kind of winner.

The opinion is: Steinbrenner was an asshole with a lot of money. He was a bully who often humiliated his employees, then threw money around to smooth things over and ease his conscience.

The opinion is: Hey, George: money can't buy everything.

The homily is: "Mussolini was a good man," my grandmother once said to me. And a lot of Italian peasants at the time would have agreed. He did a lot for the poor. But they're not holding a minute of silence for him anywhere I know. What if George Steinbrenner--or, for that matter, any of us--were given free reign over a small country? How many of us, including Steinbrenner, would set up democratic elections and insist on freedom of the press? The only difference between global tyrants, and petty, everyday tyrants is opportunity. And revisionist history belongs on the barnyard floor.

Friday, July 16, 2010

It is sunny. It is cold. It is cloudy. Last night the wind would not stop whistling out there in the dark. It howled. It screamed. It knocked down trees through power lines out by the bridge. Last night it rained like it’s been threatening to since May and I can’t even remember when May was anymore. We were sitting on the porch drinking. Sweat had dried to our bodies three times over. The sky seemed to split open with light and loud the rains came down. The river’s been acting up. This is the news with the weather. Hope you are well.

Sasha Fletcher's novella WHEN ALL OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED MARCHING BANDS WILL FILL THE STREETS AND WE WILL NOT HEAR THEM BECAUSE WE WILL BE UPSTAIRS IN THE CLOUDS is out now from ml press. He too lives in Brooklyn.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

There is no news today. However, there is a word. It is "yen" and can be used as a noun or verb. If used as a noun, yen has two meanings" first, it is "a desire or craving;" second, it is "an aluminum coin and monetary unit of Japan, equal to 100 sen or 1000 rin." If used as a verb, yen is "to have a craving," to "yearn." The nouns are interesting. So disconnected, yet so related. Here's a useful tidbit: "The use of yen to signify a desire, as opposed to Japanese currency, is an Americanism that probably derives from Chinese dialect, yáhn or yin, 'craving.'" Thank you, Dictionary.com. I think we've all learned something today.

Molly Gaudry is the author of the verse novel We Take Me Apart (Mud Luscious, 2009) and the editor of Tell: An Anthology of Expository Narrative (Flatmancrooked, 2010). She is Googleable.

Fiction

About Me

Robert Lopez is the author of two novels, Part of the World and Kamby Bolongo Mean River and a collection of short fiction, Asunder. He has taught at The New School, Pratt Institute, Columbia University, Pine Manor College's Solstice Low-Res MFA Program and was a 2010 Fellow in Fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Email - lopezr@newschool.edu
rcl0831@aol.com